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Some HW help needed...

Tried to boot up my PC earlier, but it went into windoze but the monitor just had no display and my LCD's powersupply light just went on blinking. I tried to access my folders from my MAC and had no problems.

Can go into BIOS and had no problems using it with no blackout. The moment it goes into windoze (after the progress bar) it blacks out.

I tried reseating the video card, but now it won't even go into windoze. Tried unplugging all the devices leaving only the RAM and video, and it will still boot and say no bootable media found.

I wanted to try reinstalling XP, but then it cannot detect my 200GB without SP1, I cannot format and is not willing to lose all my data inside, any suggestions or idea what has happened?

Re: Some HW help needed...

But I thought you mentioned you can use MAC to access the folder, but it can't copy data over to MAC side first? (Sorry, not very familiar with Apple)
Or try to install window in the 40Gb harddisk, then try to sort out or copy the data first, then reformat and re-install on the 200Gb one?

Re: Some HW help needed...

Originally Posted by espn

Tried to boot up my PC earlier, but it went into windoze but the monitor just had no display and my LCD's powersupply light just went on blinking. I tried to access my folders from my MAC and had no problems.

Can go into BIOS and had no problems using it with no blackout. The moment it goes into windoze (after the progress bar) it blacks out.

I tried reseating the video card, but now it won't even go into windoze. Tried unplugging all the devices leaving only the RAM and video, and it will still boot and say no bootable media found.

I wanted to try reinstalling XP, but then it cannot detect my 200GB without SP1, I cannot format and is not willing to lose all my data inside, any suggestions or idea what has happened?

Now my HDD light is on continously.

Right after the BIOS boot screen and just before the Windows bootup screen appears (the one with the blue scrolling bar), press F8.
Select Boot up in Safe Mode. Uninstalling your graphics card drivers.
If it's a driver issue, you'll be able to enter Windows in normal mode after that and re-install your drivers.

If you have 2 displays plugged in, unplug the secondary display. It can cause problems with the first boot-up after installing/ updating drivers (especially with ATI Radeon cards, from my experience).

Re: Some HW help needed...

Originally Posted by zcf

But I thought you mentioned you can use MAC to access the folder, but it can't copy data over to MAC side first? (Sorry, not very familiar with Apple)
Or try to install window in the 40Gb harddisk, then try to sort out or copy the data first, then reformat and re-install on the 200Gb one?

Alas, I didn't share out all my folders on my windoze and I cannot log in to windows to enable default share, and somemore now it won't even boot up.

And worse, my mac only has 20GB left, my portable HDD still has 40GB and my office still have a personal 20GB.

Re: Some HW help needed...

Originally Posted by Firefox

Right after the BIOS boot screen and just before the Windows bootup screen appears (the one with the blue scrolling bar), press F8.
Select Boot up in Safe Mode. Uninstalling your graphics card drivers.
If it's a driver issue, you'll be able to enter Windows in normal mode after that and re-install your drivers.

If you have 2 displays plugged in, unplug the secondary display. It can cause problems with the first boot-up after installing/ updating drivers (especially with ATI Radeon cards, from my experience).

Thanks, I can't even get into safe mode now. That's the whole problem. Everything was working fine till today.

Re: Some HW help needed...

But does that mean your harddisk still can be run on another computer or not ?

If still can, think it's time to buy another harddisk and see can savage any data from (the may be spoilt?) one.

I sold my spare PC long ago, no more PC to try unless I bring to office. Managed to get it up and running now, formatting it and reinstalling XP on the 200GB HDD, after installing SP1 and recovering the remaining 80GB I will use my s/w to recover the files from my HDD and see what can be salvaged

Re: Some HW help needed...

Re: Some HW help needed...

Originally Posted by espn

I sold my spare PC long ago, no more PC to try unless I bring to office. Managed to get it up and running now, formatting it and reinstalling XP on the 200GB HDD, after installing SP1 and recovering the remaining 80GB I will use my s/w to recover the files from my HDD and see what can be salvaged

Once you start re-writing over the disk, I doubt you can retrieve the files anymore. Seems like you got a corrupted MFT or MBR. Windows won't load the ntfs.sys file if it detects a corrupted MFT. Hence, being stuck just before the log-on screen.
The only way is to take the drive and use an ATA to USB adaptor.
Then boot-up another computer running Windows 2K or Windows XP and let it finish loading windows before plugging the drive in.